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Platform: Xbox Genre: Strategy Publisher: Atari Developer: Secret Level ESRB: T (Teen) Released: Q4 2003
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Magic: The Gathering BattlegroundsScore: 7.9 / 10 |
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Pros: - Fast paced, intense battles - Smooth online play - Magic license used well |
Cons: - Comparatively small spellbooks - Repetitive single-player game |
Related Links: Goodies: Give Me The Brain / Lord of the Fries card games Review: Magic & Mayhem: The Art of Magic (PC)
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"The single-player game basically involves a series of duels and the A.I. can get a bit predictable." |
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Magic: The Gathering has been around for over ten years and has been growing bigger and bigger all that time. It is the most successful niche product in the hobby world, a fact that hasn't escaped the attention of Hasbro, which bought the company that owned Magic, Wizards of the Coast, mainly because of another license, Pokemon, and have been pleasantly surprised at the performance of M:TG. The continued success of Magic pretty much guaranteed a move into the video game market, and, under Hasbro, Wizards has been much more aggressive in pursuit of that lucrative sector. Recently, that has led to a very successful online implementation of the card game itself and, now, a foray into real-time strategy. Magic: The Gathering Battlegrounds is a stripped-down real-time strategy game that takes its presentation and pacing from the realm of the fighting game. It is an odd bird, but one not without redeeming qualities.
Magic, the card game, involves staging a duel between two wizards who use the spells in their spellbook (deck) to try to reduce their opponent to zero life (or complete one of a handful of other ways to win a duel). Battlegrounds takes that formula and turns it into a fast-paced strategy game. Cosmetically, the game looks just like a 2D/Pseudo 3D fighting game, except for a glowing line that divides the battlefield into two halves. The battlefield does not scroll at all, so the room for maneuvering is very limited. Instead of using his or her character to bludgeon the opponent (either controlled by the computer or by a human opponent), the player instead rapidly fires off spells from those available to him or her. Most of these spells either summon creatures to do battle in the name of the wizard, do something to enhance the power of controllers creatures, or do something to damage or weaken the creatures controlled by the opponent.
Players
are asked to pick a discipline at the beginning of the game.
Like the card game, there are five different schools of magic in
the game: black, white, red, green, and blue.
Each color has its own focus and set of spells, and as far as I
was able to tell, they seem quite balanced.
It is important to play each color with a different style, but
once the appropriate strategy is discovered the five colors all match up
pretty well. Both
duelists begin with twenty life points.
Summoned creatures try to cross the screen and damage the
opposing wizard, but stop and fight with the opponent's creatures when
possible. Some creatures
are blockers only and others are designed to give benefits when they
die. Regardless, the goal
is to use these creatures to reduce the opposing wizard to zero life
points. The interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy to scroll through available spells and get off the right one at the right time. Despite this, the pace of the game is hectic, and the game can be really daunting to newcomers. Heck, even some of the tutorial levels require perfect timing and performance to clear. Still, once players are familiar with each of the spells and comfortable with the controls, spectacular butt kickings ensue.
The
graphics are well-designed, with inspiration coming directly from the
art of the card game. Like
a fighting game, the engine here has little to test the power of the
Xbox, so lots of cycles are left over for sharp, alias-free renderings
of the wizards and their
minions. The non-creature spell effects aren't over-the-top or
spectacular, but they do make good use of particle effects and colored
lighting and never obscure the battlefield in a way that would be
distracting. Final Fantasy
style flights of fancy just wouldn't work in this environment.
The creature design, lifted straight from M:TG is cool. I've always liked how Magic's creature design lifted from
many of the standard sources (D&D, Tolkien, Lieber, etc) while
maintaining a left-of-center aesthetic and Battlegrounds keeps up this
tradition. The black mana
creatures especially are odd and brutal looking. The
single-player game basically involves a series of duels and the A.I. can
get a bit predictable. The
game really shines, however, multi-player, either face-to-face or
online. Human opponents can
really wreck havoc with some odd strategies and the game becomes very
creative and dynamic when played head-to-head.
Battlegrounds can really get the adrenaline pumping with its fast
pace and with the fact that most matches really go down to the wire
(even the A.I. matches which seem to contain a bit of rubberbanding,
though that might have only been my perception). Any way you cut it, Battlegrounds is a unique, chaotic experience and one that is worthy of a purchase if you are a fan of the card game and at least a rental otherwise.
- Tolen Dante (March 14, 2004) Search for Related Topics: |
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